December 07, 2003

December 7

To have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy. Now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! ...Hitter's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground into powder.

I usually do not post on a Sunday. Today is December 7 so I make an exception. It is truly a day that has lived in infamy. Yet it is also a day that inspired a heroism wemustecho in latter-days all too often characterized by cynicism, conspiracy and appeasement.

I hope American readers forgive Sir Winston Churchill's relief to have the United States enter the war at long last. He had faced the nightmare across the Channel long enough to celebrate the awakening of the giant no matter how tragic the circumstances. Here is a reminder of more words that place Churchill's joy in context. They remain as moving and inciteful as they were when they were first spoken.

What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”

And then... Mike Campbell has more to say about Churchill and Pearl Harbor, Ith posts a tribute and the Emperor asks us to transform our anger into action. Jay Solo has links to more blogospheric commentary.

And then... John posts FDR's historic speech to Congress and the American people.